March 2, 1997

Playing Hooky

Sometimes you have to remember to slow down and smell the exhaust.

This morning I woke up when Judy called me, around 11. She had already called Darin, waking him up, because she thought I had called her from home. We talked for a long time and planned to get together over my spring break when I go up north. (Which is going to be the last time I'm going up north for quite a while.)

After talking to her I called Darin (who'd buzzed in while I was talking to Judy, and I told him I'd call him after I was done with her) and we discussed going to breakfast alone together. Each in our own cities. Going out for breakfast with someone...what a concept. Then I read more of a book I picked up yesterday: Permanent Midnight, by Jerry Stahl, the memoir of a TV writer and heroin addict. He does a good job of describing what life as an addict is like, but he doesn't really describe how the hell he functioned as a writer when he was stoned all the time. Maybe that's the point -- TV requires you to shut your brain off so much even an addict can make $5000 a week.

(Wow...$5000 a week! That's...only $250,000 a year. Not really very much for Hollywood, scarily enough; here they pay actors a couple of million if when that actor isn't the first choice. And $5000 is only enough money for fifteen minutes of Michael Eisner's time under his new contract.)

I went to Du-Par's and had breakfast and read the Sunday Times. It was such a beautiful day that I decided to go for a drive. I've promised myself since I've gotten here that I'd go for a Sunday drive, and I haven't done it once, until today. I drove up Laurel Canyon to Mulholland and then headed west on Mulholland drive, which is the road that lines the top of the Hollywood Hills. At various parts along Mulholland you can see over the LA Basin or the San Fernando Valley -- it's really beautiful. I saw some gigantic houses and others that I couldn't get near because they're behind guarded gates. There were also tons of real estate signs listing houses for sale and a couple of open houses. I debated going in to see what a million-dollar home looks like. But instead I kept driving.

Once I got back down to the valley floor I drove by the house that we bought -- there's a SOLD sign out front! -- and then headed over to Barnes & Noble, where I got a book on Interior Decorating. (I almost bought the Martha Stewart one; how scary is that?)